Tetris might have the answer
While which Tetris block drops is random, players are shown what the next block will be before it drops. If Elixirs are modified in such a way that the player knows which effect (different coloured icon) it would be before they threw them, then you can have a random elixir that can still be used tactically.

I would support this over current versions of elixirs.

I would still think removing the entire mechanic and making a new, more interesting one is the way to go, though, since we certainly can make new, more interesting mechanics.

Also,

Hep, on 06 July 2012 - 03:39 PM, said:

LoL is also a completely different game with a different set of core mechanics. I'm not stating it's impossible for a game to have lots of builds/tactics and the removal of random effects, I'm stating it's that way with GW2's core mechanics. It would be ideal to revamp those core mechanics to eliminate random effects, but I don't see that as feasible as this point. Anet likes it, and it would take a giant pile resources to change how the game mechanics work.

Tetris might have the answer
While which Tetris block drops is random, players are shown what the next block will be before it drops. If Elixirs are modified in such a way that the player knows which effect (different coloured icon) it would be before they threw them, then you can have a random elixir that can still be used tactically.

I thought about this, and unfortunately, I don't see that as viable. If you can see what's coming up, you'd just toss the elixirs to the side until you found the effect you're looking for. In your Tetris analogy, it would be like being able to eliminate blocks until you found the one you're looking for.

What do you even mean? You were complaining about people only focusing on the random bit, so I explained why. If you're going to trot out the old "the random effects are equal just different"....

Your answer has no relevance to what I wrote.

Thats nice. Hate to break it to you, but your not the only poster on the topic. I by no means, am required to specifically anser ll of your post.

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You're the only one here who thinks that the toolbelts and the associated skills are one skill dude.

You mean besides the devs?? They have stated so in past interviews and posts.

It appears that may be the problem......Like it or not, they have to balance the utilities around our class mechanic. Just because you chose to ignore it and remove validity to your point, does not mean the rest of us are required to only debate portions of the elixirs as a utility. The tool belt and utility slot itself, work together as a whole, that is how our class works. If your not discussing them as a whole, then you are intentionally ignoring facts of the utility simply for your convenience, your simply making your argument a fallacy.

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What do you even mean? You were complaining about people only focusing on the random bit, so I explained why.

For someone who likes to point fingers, accusing others of not reading what you posted, you sure do so a lot yourself. I already answered this.

I thought about this, and unfortunately, I don't see that as viable. If you can see what's coming up, you'd just toss the elixirs to the side until you found the effect you're looking for. In your Tetris analogy, it would be like being able to eliminate blocks until you found the one you're looking for.

You could, but it'll put you on a cooldown. At least all the effects are actually useful, it's just a matter of when its best to use it. It's still a major gimp compared to predictable skills.

I am quite sure that Anet will go live with Elixirs the way they are, or maybe a slightly more narrow range of randomness, like the Sure + Random suggestion someone made earlier. It depends on how long Anet can accept Elixirs (or Engineers) being the red-headed step-child.

am quite sure that Anet will go live with Elixirs the way they are, or maybe a slightly more narrow range of randomness, like the Sure + Random suggestion someone made earlier. It depends on how long Anet can accept Elixirs (or Engineers) being the red-headed step-child.

With the fact that tool belt+utility slot always equals at minimum 2 boons or 2 conditions, one of which is always a known factor and equivalent to a standard utility of other classes, plus an random benefit on top, that often will offer more out of the utility then any other class gets (sometimes 4 benefits between slot and tool belt) ........that makes elixirs easily on par with other classes if not more powerful in some cases.

With the fact that tool belt+utility slot always equals at minimum 2 boons or 2 conditions, one of which is always a known factor and equivalent to a standard utility of other classes, plus an random benefit on top, that often will offer more out of the utility then any other class gets (sometimes 4 benefits between slot and tool belt) ........that makes elixirs easily on par with other classes if not more powerful in some cases.

And, a necromancer with his pets + death shroud ensure that he always has a second life bar.

Needlessly adding unrelated things together is not helpful at all. The toolbelt skills and utilities, while related, are not balanced together. There is no evidence of that. They are separate skills, on separate cooldowns, with different effects, with different traits and stats affecting them.

Thats nice. Hate to break it to you, but your not the only poster on the topic. I by no means, am required to specifically anser ll of your post.

If you're not responding to me, don't quote me.

EDIT:I printscreened the page. I hope you're going to deny it and we don't have to devolve into a silly and completely pointless "no I didn't" "yes you did".

coglin, on 06 July 2012 - 03:46 PM, said:

For someone who likes to point fingers, accusing others of not reading what you posted, you sure do so a lot yourself. I already answered this.

I read it. I could not make any connection from it to my post. You then say you're not responding to me, then subsequently say you already answered this, implicitly saying you're actually responding to me.

Your absolutely wrong to even assume all necros chose to use pets ......Now your making a comparison to a very specific build ......thats almost the definition of fallacy.

You're joking right?

Were talking specifically about elixirs here. And I'm not talking about specific builds anyway. It can be ANYTHING. All necromancers have death shroud, so corruptions+ death shroud, wells+death shroud and so on.

The point isn't the pets, as you incorrectly assumed. The point is the death shroud. And how, It is placed with something that has no balancing impact on it. I was comparing your assertion that toolbelts and utilities are balanced as one skill, by comparing it to the necromancer. Because the toolbelt and death shroud are both similar, in that they occupy the f1-f4 skills. So, when you say that elixirs+toolbelt, I'm thinking, why? Why elixirs+toolbelt, why not elixirs+ weapon skills? Why not elixirs+gear? Why would you put together two things that have no balancing impact on eachother?

Were talking specifically about elixirs here. And I'm not talking about specific builds anyway. It can be ANYTHING. All necromancers have death shroud, so corruptions+ death shroud, wells+death shroud and so on.

The point isn't the pets, as you incorrectly assumed.

Nope, not joking. If the point isn't the pets, then you should not have specifically compared to them

I can't disagree, but I think flavor has nothing to do with if they are healthy for competitive play.

Why should the 1% - or even less than 1% - probability of a match being decided purely on luck not scare a competitive player?

Take this example I used in another thread. In Warcraft III, which is already mostly deterministic, and where usually things like damage ranges and crit procs/bash procs etc don't usually matter that much because it normalizes over many, many trials, there exists games - worldwide tournament games - where they can ruin games. I can think of one offhand - a Undead vs Orc match - this was the finals of some tournament, WCG or something, I don't remember- that went well into the late game. The match was very well played by both sides, the Undead player using a very unorthodox starting strategy (Crypt Lord first) and the Orc player somehow being able to keep on with an equal footing into the late game.

The game was decided when the Orc's Blademaster (equipped with damage items) decided to triple crit the Undead's Death Knight second hero - dealing 4 times normal damage on 3 attacks, 15% chance on each attack. The chances of getting that triple crit was around 0.3~%.

Should the Undead have lost the game because the Orc player got lucky and procced a crit 3 times?

These things do happen.

Wat?

Skill is quite a fluid thing, but at some level, you can say two players have about 50-50 chance of winning. We see this at a lot of tournaments.

However, the ideal of "equal skill" isn't even something that's relevant, so wat?

Chances are your opponents were not mashing, you were just ludicrously bad at the game. This is my genuine observation. Fighting games is a good example - oftentimes you have a casual ask offhand "well can't I just mash and beat the top player like that?" - when it's so clearly obvious to anybody familiar to the scene that that's ludicrous - I find it really hard to believe, especially as your first statement (which I will deal with, as it is the same as "it doesn't matter if he got swiftness randomly", only of a different magnitude) suggests a complete ignorance of things like leveling (also called yomi) and mindgames.

I provided earlier an example where three crits from a BM killed a DK and decided purely by chance an otherwise really close game. I'd hate that to happen again, it kinda ruined the tournament for me - and I know it ruined it for a lot of other people, too.

Whether this is true or not, this is an assertion describing something that would be a truth statement, yes? We can apply the same to randomness.

It's like saying "If we want to protect the environment, cars should ideally produce no harmful emissions, so we should ensure they produce as little harmful emissions as possible". Is that an opinion?

Compare this: "If we want to create a good competitive game, ideally luck should have no effect on the outcome and skill should be the only determinant in the outcome of games, so we should ensure that it is as unlikely as possible that a game is thrown by luck".

This is not a good defense, as this merely suggests the game doesn't provide enough choices (I said earlier that the hallmark of a good game is - there are multiple 'styles' of play that are not obviously (or even upon close inspection) superior from one another. This is a good article that speaks about the issue: Day9 on marginal advantage

All it suggests is that we need to rework the whole system if we want combat to be interesting enough. I don't disagree with this sentiment.

==

Now. Oh boy.

I'm going to have to balk at how shockingly naive and ludicrous this statement is.

Let me start by stating what is true: if I am in state A, and someone in state B gained a swiftness boon, and we start the game in this scenario, then it does not matter how the someone in state B gained that swiftness boon.

You are, however, disregarding everything that happened before that.

Say, someone (Let’s call him “A”) in state A_null is against someone (“B”) in state B_null on a cap point.. Let us suppose, first, that “B” has a skill (S) that gives him Might consistently, and that if he uses this skill (let us call the state after he used the skill B_might) the tide of the fight goes from 60% in “A”’s favor (if he doesn’t use it) to 60% in “B”’s favor.

We now have “A”, who may or may not be currently cognizant of that “B” is able to use this skill S to go from B_null to B_might. If “A” is currently cognizant of this, “A” can attempt to proactively counterplay against this skill, so that “A” shifts to a state A_countermight that he can hold for a short time before when he thinks the skill will activate; let us say that the tide of the fight, if B uses might, goes instead to 50/50, even between “A” and “B”; but since this is a more defensive state, he loses an edge which means if “B” doesn’t activate S, “A”’s edge lessens to 55% in “A”’s favor. Now, let’s say “B” is able to wait this A_countermight state out without suffering too large of a consequence. Thus, if “B” reads “A” correctly, he can ba....snip ...

I guess I am too noob to understand this apparent deep level of understanding for competitive play, since these all read as chance to me.

If A this... if B that... ?And if not?
These are different from "If elixir give X" or "if elixir gives Y" how?

Educated guesses and anticipations are still guesswork at its core.
You are still literally taking a gamble trying to read your opponent.

What I am reading here is the description of a player A trying to anticipate or read a player B with Swhen B actually has X.
That's all you did, sub out S for X.

Now, whose fault would it be if A failed to react or pre-empt accordingly?

Nope, not joking. If the point isn't the pets, then you should not have specifically compared to them

You're being difficult on purpose aren't you. The pets part of my post, was entirely arbitrary. And I'm going to spell it out for you REALLY simply.

It does not matter one tiny bit, what the necromancer slots in his bars. Pets, corruptions, wells, or whatever he wants. It matters not.

My point, was that you can't just balance pets, or corruptions, or whatever, with death shroud in mind. That was the point. It wasn't a point about pets, I just included pets, to help you relate to the point, as not everyone has played a necromancer, but everyone knows they have minions.

So, to explain it to you again. The point ISN'T pets, its just there to illustrate my point.

It does not matter one tiny bit, what the necromancer slots in his bars. Pets, corruptions, wells, or whatever he wants. It matters not.

My point, was that you can't just balance pets, or corruptions, or whatever, with death shroud in mind. That was the point. It wasn't a point about pets, I just included pets, to help you relate to the point, as not everyone has played a necromancer, but everyone knows they have minions.

I disagree, they can quit literally balance the other classes utilities with their class mechanic in mind.

If your going to get all upset that I used the exact example you did, well I am sorry. You chose the example, not I.